Commercial premises, including farm yards and barns, may be affected by contamination due to past uses.
Such contamination may have occurred due oil leaks, buried waste, asbestos containing materials, leaking pesticides etc.
Permitted Developments such as the conversions of offices to residential premises, may also fall into the contaminated land regime and require a planning condition. This is because such premises, if built before the year 2000 are likely to contain asbestos containing materials (ACMs) which could form a Source-Pathway-Receptor linkage with future receptors. Therefore a suitable Asbestos survey would be required and potential removal of any ACMs.
‘Contaminated Land’ is a strict legal definition, defined by Part 2A of the Environmental Protection Act 1990, Section 78A (2) as:
- any land which appears to the Local Authority in whose area it is situated to be in such a condition, by reason of substances in, on or under the land that –
- a) significant harm is being caused or there is a significant possibility of such harm being caused; or
- b) pollution of controlled waters is being, or is likely to be caused.”
(the regime has been extended to include land contaminated with radioactive substances)
Part 2A places a duty on the Council to publish a contaminated land strategy, inspect its area in accordance with the strategy and to keep a public register of prescribed particulars regarding remediation notices, remediation statements or declarations, appeals and notifications in relation to land formally determined as ‘contaminated land’. It is not a ‘register of contaminated land’, a common misconception.
Public Register enquires
At present, there are no formally determined Contaminated Land sites in the Wealden District and so there are no entries on the public register.
How we deal with land contamination
We can deal with land contamination under a number of different ways.
Land contamination and Environmental Information Requests
Environmental information about a specific area of land or property may be obtained by submitting an Environmental Information Request to us.
Contaminated Land Strategy
This strategy sets out our approach for the identification, inspection, assessment and remediation of land which may be designated as contaminated land in accordance with the statutory definition at Part IIA of the Environmental Protection Act 1990 (EPA 90).